A dual-spectral camera system for paddy rice seedling row detection

A new method is presented for detecting rows of rice seedlings to facilitate the navigation of rice transplanters. Generally, an independent NIR or RGB camera is used as a vision sensor for agricultural vehicles; however, strong reflections on the water surface make row detection more difficult in flooded paddy fields compared to dry fields. To solve this problem, we developed a dual-spectral camera system that consists of a pair of low-cost monochrome cameras with optical filters. Different wavelength images of the same location can be taken simultaneously in real-time. An experiment conducted under cloudy conditions showed that this system could reduce water surface noise and clearly detect seedling rows. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.